Top 100 Clubfitters

2013

Top 100 Clubfitters

2013

Top 100 Clubfitters

2013

Studio "B"

Certified

PING i25 Hybrids

PING has made some huge inroads into the better-players hybrid market recently, even before Phil Mickelson put a 17° Anser hybrid into his bag for the 2013 Open Championship, and PING’s lead engineer Marty Jertson says that Tour players are even more “stoked” for the i25 hybrids. That’s right: stoked. His words.

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Performance

The i25’s are a blend between a hybrid iron and the metalwood-style hybrids that have been popular recently. On the iron side, there’s the flattish face, straighter leading edge and more compact frame overall than most hybrids. But then there’s the substantial offset, and the internal structure of the club meant to elevate launch angles and lower spin like a metalwood. Jertson identifies the philosophy as “a lot of the same physics principles that [PING] used to design the G15 and G20 hybrids, but in a much more cosmetically appealing package.”

The forward hosel axis closes off the face a little more compared to the more open-faced look of the i20’s and increases offset, resulting in a higher-lofted clubface angle at impact. This heightens the clubs’ launch angle, as does the rearward placement of the center of gravity in the lower-lofted hybrids. In the higher lofts, that CG placement moves slightly toward the face, which affects trajectory and keeps the proper distance gaps in place between hybrids. For small, compact hybrids, balls hit off the i25 get up into the air with astounding ease.

Look

No racing stripes here. The matte-black crown has a very traditional look that complements the smaller head to a tee. Rather than opening the face to try and prevent a miss to the left for right-handed golfers (as PING has tried in the past with i-Series hybrids), the face angle here is pretty much square, which looks more workable and performs that way, too.

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Final Thoughts

Not only are the i25 hybrids available in four different lofts – 17°, 19°, 22° and 26° — but there are also two different stock shaft weights in PING’s proprietary PWR (Performance, Weighting, Responsiveness) shaft, an 80-gram version and a 90-gram. Picking between the two can affect trajectory and side-to-side shot dispersion while maintaining a consistent swingweight, so you can make the same swing for each shaft weight. You can pre-order these hybrids now (they ship in mid-February) and talk with our expert fitters to determine which loft and shaft option is going to offer the best performance for your needs this season.